The rice planting season usually begins in April or May. Rice is by far the most important of all Thai crops and the principal food for people throughout the country. Whether boiled or steamed, distilled into a liquor known as lao khao or transformed into sweets and noodles, rice and its cultivation forms a central pillar of Thai life. Kin khao, the Thai expression for ΓÇ£to eat,ΓÇ¥ literally means ΓÇ£to eat rice.ΓÇ¥ The grain provides major government revenues and for centuries has been ThailandΓÇÖs leading agricultural export.
Visakha Puja, the yearΓÇÖs greatest religious holiday, which commemorates the BuddhaΓÇÖs birth, enlightenment, and death, comes during seeding and ploughing. Village elders attend temple
celebrations and sermons during the day, while those who have been working in the fields return at dusk to join the solemn candle or torchlit procession that circumambulates the monastery chapel three times. Each person carries flowers, three glowing incense sticks, and a lighted candle in silent homage to the Buddha, his teaching, and his disciples.
Shortly after transplanting is completed, usually towards the end o May, the first of the annual monsoonrains arrive to innundate farmland. Daily rainfall replenishes the fields and while the rice is growing much of the familyΓÇÖ s time is taken up with Rains Retreat observances.
During this annual three-month period (Phansa in Thai), Buddhist monks are required to remain in their monasteries overnight, a tradition which predates Buddhism. In ancient India, all holy men, mendicants, and sages spent three months of the rainy season in permanent dwellings, thus avoiding unnecessary travel during the time crops were still new for fear they might accidentally tread on young plants. In deference to popular opinion, the Buddha decreed that his followers also abide by this tradition. This initiated a move away from an itinerant life to a more or less settled existence since the advantages of a communal life style became apparent.
Phansa represents a time of renewed spiritual vigour. The monk meditates more, studies more, and teaches more. Laymen, too, endeavour to be more conscientious, perhaps abstaining from liquor and cigarettes and giving extra financial and physical support to local monasteries. As already noted, this is also the period when young men enter the monastery for spiritual training.
The Buddhist ordination is a mixture of religious solemnity, meritmaking, and boisterous celebration, reflecting the Thai belief that the three most important events in a manΓÇÖs life are his birth, his ordination, and his marriage. The ordination ritual itself originated more than 2,500 years ago as the Sangha (the Buddhist monastic order) took shape and has changed little to this day. Socially, it is something in which the entire village participates. Local monks comprise the presiding chapter and preceptors, while villagers gain merit by accompanying the tonsured, white-robed candidate for monkhood (known as the nak) in a colourful procession to the monastery, often marked by joyous dancing and the infectious pounding of long drums.
Symbolism pervades every aspect of the ordination ceremony. The nakΓÇÖs white robe connotes purity and the royal umbrella held over his head reminds participants of the royal heritage Prince Siddharta Gautama renounced during his spiritual quest to become the Buddha. The nak leads the villagers in a triple circumambulation of the monastery chapel to evoke the Buddhist Triple Gem ΓÇô the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha (the Teacher, the Teaching, and the Taught).
Once the rains end, the daily rhythm of fieldwork is increasingly concerned with keeping birds away from the ripening rice. During this time fish are abundant in rain-swollen streams and fields. Methods and equipment for freshwater fishing vary from region to region and depending on where the fish are being caught ΓÇô canals, rivers, ponds, or rice fields.
In early November, one of the most beautiful of Thai festivals, Loy Krathong, takes place. Loy means ΓÇ£to floatΓÇ¥ and a krathong is a lotus-shaped vessel made of banana leaves. The krathong usually contains a candle, three incense sticks, some flowers, and a few coins. By the light of the full moon, people light the candles and incense, make a wish, and launch their krathongs on the nearest body of water. The spirit of the water, who plays such an important part in rural life, is thus honoured, and it is also commonly believed the krathongs carry away the past yearΓÇÖs troubles and bear the launchersΓÇÖ hopes for the future. Moonlit waterways throughout Thailand are covered with tiny, flickering lights, representing millions of silent aspirations.
By late November or early December rice in the north and the central plains is ready to be harvested.Wherever possible, water is drained to allow the fields to dry. Harvesting schedules are
determined by common consent within each village. Early each morning cooperative work groups go into the fields with sickles to harvest each farmerΓÇÖs crop. Around noon, the host family sends food to the workers, and after lunch work resumes until dark, when the host family provides another meal.
The cut rice is spread on the fields to dry for several days before being bundled into sheaves and taken to the family compound, where it is threshed and winnowed. Except in the south, where later monsoons arrive late in the year, harvesting usually ends in January or February. Then the farm family turns its energies to activities neglected during the harvest. Buildings, tools, and fences are repaired and secondary crops are either planted or harvested.
The hot dry season that follows is marked by the Songkran festival, which celebrates the traditional Thai New Year. At this time people from rural areas who are working in the city usually return home for the festivities. Songkran is observed nationwide, but with special elan in the north where, because it occurs during a time of relative leisure, it becomes a three to five day festival of entertaining and socialising.
A thorough house cleaning, sprinkling of Buddha images with lustral water, memorial ceremonies, merit-making presentations of gifts to monks, elders, and spirits, the release of caged birds and fish, pilgrimages to holy shrines, parades, dancing, and uninhibited, good-natured water throwing are all features of the Songkran celebration.
Around this time, showers signal the approaching end of the dry season, and villagers once more prepare for rice planting as one annual cycle ends and another begins.
Leisure Activities
A penchant for khwam sanuk, loosely translated as ΓÇ£fun,ΓÇ¥ combines with a natural gregariousness to ensure that both spontaneous and formal leisure activities are vital parts of the Thai villageΓÇÖs social fabric.
Rice cultivation demands consistent hard work, but the communal gatherings that result set the stage for all types of group activities, from feasting to courting. On some evenings, instead of going to
bed, many villagers gather around bonfires to talk. Young people sing and get to know one another better. Older people chat, tell stories, and drink homemade rice liquor, a mild or potent brew depending on the brewerΓÇÖs skill and the ingredients at hand.
There may be a rhyming song contest and friendly banter between old and young as individuals try to outdo each other in composing choruses with familiar themes. Local musicians may play reed instruments, bamboo flutes, hand cymbals, and drums to accompany singers, providing both inspiration and humour.
Ordinations, especially when a number of families pool resources for a group ceremony, are often celebrated with similar festivity. Enormous feasts are prepared. Electric generators may be rented, a band organized, and a folk dance troupe engaged to keep revelers spellbound until the early hours with satiric comic opera performances featuring outrageous puns and double entendres, sly ribaldry, and popular folk
songs.
Throughout the year, villagers share a common interest in gambling, traveling (pai thieo), and sports. With many, gambling is a passion. The national lottery excites imaginations in every province, as do cockfights and such exotic competitions as fish and beetle fighting. Card games are a pastime favoured by both sexes and almost everyone can play Thai chess.
Pai thieo by foot, boat, bus, motorbike, or rail is a favourite way to relax when time allows. Travelling makes the village less insular and personal relations with family and friends are treasured as much for the opportunities they afford for travel as for the affection upon which they are based.
Besides national celebrations, there are regional festivals like the northeastern Ngan Hae Bang Fai, or Rocket festival, in May or June of each year. Traditionally a time of letting off steam, the festivalΓÇÖs high point comes when, amid much merry-making, villagers fire homemade rockets, some of them as tall as 20 metres, to ensure a plentiful rainfall for the forthcoming rice season.
Takraw and kite flying are populartraditional sports.
Takraw is played by a loosely-formed circle of men who use their feet, knees, thighs, chests, and shoulders to acrobatically pass a woven rattan ball to one another, endeavouring to keep it in the
air as long as possible and eventually kick it into a basket hanging high above. (There is also a professional version of takraw, known as sepak takraw, which is played by teams from various
ASEAN countries in competitions.)
Kites are flown mostly during the breezy hot season. In addition to being an individual pleasure, kite flying can be a competitive sport. Opposing teams fly male (chula) and female (pakpao) kites in a surrogate battle of the sexes.The small, agile pakpaos try to bring down the more cumbersome chulas, while the male kites seek to snare the female kites and bring them back into male territory.
During temple fairs, another popular sport is the unique martial art of Thai boxing. A form of self-defence developed during the Ayutthaya period, Thai boxing forbids biting, spitting, or wrestling. On the other hand, the contestants may punch, kick, and shove, and unrestrainedly use their bare feet, legs, knees, elbows, shoulders, and fists to savage each other. A vicious kick in the throat, an elbow smash to the eyes, a knee in the stomach, or a whiplash kick in the chest can immediately floor the sturdiest opponent. Nowadays, fighters wear conventional boxing gloves, a somewhat humane development considering that less than 50 years ago they customarily bound their fists with hemp which contained liberal quantities of ground glass.
For the most part Thai cuisine is highly spiced and hot, thanks to the addition of a variety of chillies, large and small, some more potent than others. The burning sensation of Thai chillies has caused much fanning of mouths by stunned foreigners on their first sampling, but increased experience often brings enthusiastic approval, as attested by the widespread popularity of Thai restaurants around the world.
The ideal traditional Thai meal aims at being a harmonious blend of spicy, sweet, and sour and is meant to be appealing to the eye, nose, and palate. A large central bowl of rice may be accompanied by a clear soup (perhaps containing bitter melons stuffed with minced pork), a steamed dish (mussels in curry sauce), a fried dish (fish with ginger), a hot salad (sliced beef on a bed of greens with chillies, onions, mint, lime juice, and more chillies), and a variety of sauces and condiments, of which the most essential is nam pla (fermented fish sauce), used as a dip. This is normally followed by a sweet dessert (bananas coated with sugared coconut and deep fried, for example) and, finally, fresh fruit (such as mangoes, durian, papaya, jackfruit, watermelon and many more) of which Thailand boasts a year-round supply.
Food varies from region to region, with modifications of standard dishes and also local specialities. In Chiang Mai, for example, the cuisine is generally milder than that of the central region;naem, a spicy pork sausage, is a northern delicacy, as are certain dishes inspired by neigh bouring Myanmar.
Northeastern food tends to be very spicy, with explosive salads and special broiled, minced meat dishes mined with tiny, high-voltage green chillies. Glutinous rice is more popular in the region than loose, boiled rice, and exotic dishes like fried ants and grasshoppers and frog curry are not uncommon. Southern cuisine, not surprisingly, makes delicious use of the seafood so abundant in the region. Lobsters, crab, scallops, fish, and squid are common ingredients and unusual delicacies like jellyfish salad can also be found. In the southernmost provinces, where there is a large Muslim community, sweet, mild, and spicy curries abound.
Foreign foods have also found a place in the Thai diet. Some of these go far back into history, like the egg-based Portuguese sweets which were introduced in the Ayutthaya period, while others like bread and cake are more
To please the eye, most Thai cooks are adept at the ancient art of fruit and vegetable carving to transform tables into visual feasts. Originally an aristocratic art practised at the royal court, vegetable carving flourished throughout the Ayutthaya period, when a deft hand could produce a white radish rose in a matter of minutes.It reached its zenith during the Bangkok reign of King Rama II when court ladies created flowers, fish, vases, bowls, and other decorative objects from watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes, spring onions, and other unlikely garden products. On a somewhat broader scale the art is still practised today, and there are few more charming surprises than discovering tomato roses and cucumber primroses with a local fast lunch.
Urban Life
In terms of present-day Thailand, to speak of urban life essentially means to speak of Bangkok, for though many provincial capitals have grown rapidly in recent years the national capital is the ultimate city to every Thai. One out of every ten Thais lives in Bangkok, which is 45 times bigger than Chiang Mai, the second most populous city. The metropolitan area now covers some 1,537 square kilometres on both sides of the Chao Phraya River and new suburban areas are continually being added.
Almost all major domestic and foreign companies are located in the capital, as are all government ministries and most of the countryΓÇÖs leading educational, sporting, and cultural facilities. The greater part of ThailandΓÇÖs imports and exports pass through Bangkok (though this may change as Laem Chabang deepsea port expands to feed the Eastern Seaboard, and 90 percent of the motor vehicles in the nation are registered there. It is the focal point for ThailandΓÇÖs aviation, railroad, and communications network, as well as the chief destination for the majority of tourists who come annually to occupy its more than 20,000 hotel rooms.
Given such facts, it is not surprising that Bangkok acts as a magnet for people from all parts of the country. They come to be educated at its schools, colleges, and universities, to find employment in its numerous factories and commercial firms, or simply to see its famous buildings and monuments and enjoy its highly varied pleasures. Both literally and metaphorically, all Thai roads converge on the capital.
By contrast, provincial cities tend to reflect regional characteristics. Hat Yai, for example, the southΓÇÖs major city, is growing rapidly but is still very much a projection of the tin and rubber industries that dominate the region. Chiang Mai in for the agriculture of the area and also famous as a centre of northern culture and traditions. Similarly, such northeastern cities as Nakhon Ratchasima and Khon Kaen, while prospering from local development, are essentially provincial in all senses of the word.
Only Bangkok, with its huge, diverse population, its shopping centres and highrise office buildings, and its cosmopolitan sophistication, presents itself as a city in the international sense of the term. Thus to understand modern urban culture in Thailand, it is necessary to examine the capital in some detail.
